Bog Standard Isekai

Lumina set a quick pace; the lady could walk when she wanted to and Brin found himself pushing hard to keep up even though he’d already reached her height more than a year ago. She and Hogg hadn’t listened patiently to him tell about his visit with the [King], but as soon as he mentioned the army, she’d marched out her apartment with no word on where they were going. “Tell it again. What did he say about where this army is coming from? Will he issue a general summons, or will he simply empty out the Steamshield reserve force?”

“He literally only said one sentence about the army. The rest of it was about forcing you to get married and pop out a hundred kids,” said Brin.

“I did hear that part. It’s odd. It’s not that I’m opposed to the idea of marriage and children, necessarily.” Lumina shrugged. “I think I always assumed it would just happen. But the idea of being pressed into it offends my pride. I know it’s silly, but–”

“That’s not being silly at all,” said Hogg.

“How are you not more bothered by this? We don’t even know who he's picked out for you,” said Brin.

She finally slowed down her pace because they’d arrived at the elevator. Lumina pressed the button for fourteen, and then looked at Hogg. “Wards?”

“No one can hear you,” said Hogg. Brin had noticed the new anti-eavesdropping spell Hogg was using. It was a lot more complicated than the previous spell he’d taught Brin, and this one was also using hard light in a way that Brin couldn’t quite see.

“I don’t think he’s picked out anyone for me. His Majesty can’t force me into marriage against my will. The aristocracy would never abide him attempting to assume that authority. I think he hopes I’ll panic and marry quickly before he can arrange something. But even if he did, the most he could do is give me an offer too tempting to refuse, and in that case, well, let’s see the offer then! Perhaps [General] Grimwalt will lend him the use of Officer Diali,” said Lumina.

Hogg winced, then shook himself. “She’s joking.”

“Just examining the possibilities,” Lumina said with a wink towards Brin.

Brin shook his head. “You’re sworn to your Master and he’s sworn to the [King]. He could just–”

Hogg spat, “Chaos is what? Since when? Did Lancarote say something?”

“I’ve literally told you the entire conversation twice now,” said Brin.

“So you’re just assuming?” Hogg asked, perplexed.

“I believe the last System Oath that Master swore was to [King] Ordono, and don’t ask me how long ago that was. Unless there was also an Oath involved when he surrendered his name after the death of Crara Briote. I still don’t know the full story there,” said Lumina.

Hogg nodded. “Knowing someone like Chaos is like knowing a history book who’s forgotten half of the chapters.”

“Oh, hush,” said Lumina. The elevator stopped, and then they were marching again, down the hall to Hogg’s office. Hogg opened the door for Lumina, and Brin followed her inside.

There was already someone waiting at Hogg’s desk. He [Inspected] as Xeno of Cobol, and Brin knew by reputation that he was Duke Xander of Cobol’s eldest grandson. No surprise, he was a high level [Water Mage].

“Unhand me at once!” Xeno said to Bedelia, who was standing next to him, hand clasped around his bicep and apparently holding him in place.

Bedelia turned wide innocent eyes at Hogg and said, “You told me to grab Xeno Cobol for you, so that’s what I did! And I assumed since you never told me to let him go again…”

Hogg nodded. “Correct. You did exactly the right thing.”

“She most certainly did not! You will order your servant to unhand me immediately!” said Xeno. He had a goatee that only served to call attention to the large amount of neck fat, and it bounced as he trembled in outrage.

Hogg didn’t even look at him. “Good job,” he said to Bedelia.

“R-really? I…I assumed when you got here you’d tell me how I messed up. That’s how it usually goes,” said Bedelia.

“Not this time,” said Hogg.

Bedelia looked back and forth between Hogg and Xeno. “Are you sure? Doesn’t this seem kind of wrong to do?”

“It is! It is certainly wrong to do!” protested Xeno. “Educate your servant properly, for Eridus’ sake! Young lady, I assure you, an inheriting son of Cobol is certainly not to be mishandled in such a fashion.”

Bedelia summoned a notebook and pen out of shadow, and nodded along as she took notes. “Uh-huh. And what else?”

Xeno looked to Lumina. “Am I abducted then? What could possibly have come over you to think that you’d get away with this?”

Lumina put both hands flat on the desk and leaned over it towards Xeno. Suddenly, Brin very much didn’t like that these two were the same age. She said, “I dare because it’s over, Xeno. We’ve won. I’ve just received word that His Majesty is sending an army to crush Cobol’s petty resistance. And I am to lead that army.”

Xeno slumped in the chair, no longer resisting Bedelia's crushing grip. She let him go. Looking to the side, Xeno said, “If His Majesty sees fit to help his loyal subjects in subduing a rebellious magical element… then… then I can only be grateful.”

“Good. I’d hoped that would be the way you’d want to play it. If you aren’t in rebellion, then you will indeed have no issue in immediately telling me everything you know about the Motley Shroud. As a loyal subject, you will have no hesitation now that His Majesty sees this rebellious magical element as a disturbance to his rule.”

Xeno stroked his goatee, but didn’t speak.

They waited, but that seemed to be his answer. Hogg plucked a glass vial containing a black powder and placed it on the desk. It [Inspected] as [Water Poison].

Xeno nodded. “An expected precaution.”

“Expected? My guys have been working hard on this. It’s not a poison that goes in water, it’s a poison for water itself. It doesn’t just destroy the water, it violates the principle of water by exposing the lie that water is one of the fundamental elements. It literally separates water into its component gasses.”

“Hydrogen and Oxygen,” said Brin.

Xeno’s eyes widened in surprise, since those weren’t commonly known words in Frenarian. Then he frowned at Brin. “What? Do you want a Chaos point?”

Brin folded his arms, because yes, he actually did want that. Three months of work and he’d only barely gotten into the positives again.

Hogg plucked another vial from his jacket. This one was called [Color Poison]. “I’m not going to tell you how this one works.”

Xeno sniffed. “A neat trick, and I hope those two little vials are enough to contain the disaster that threatens my home. I truly do.”

“I’ve been mass producing it for months. Lumina will be carting wagonloads of this stuff towards the Cobol duchy,” said Hogg.

It must’ve used ruby dust as an ingredient, because Hogg had created a small mountain of the stuff, but Brin knew for a fact that he sold it more slowly so as not to flood the market.

“I can tell you the basic principles. Water Magic feeds on emotion; the stronger the emotion, the more power to the spells. This is common knowledge. A knowledge much less common, because it is proprietary to the Cobol family, is the advancement of Color Magic. Color can inflame emotion, and unlike a [Bard’s] power, it’s more effective when directed inwardly. The goal of the Motley Shroud was to develop a system of enchantments, Class advancements, spells, and alchemy that would allow a [Water Mage] a synergy between the three. Water creates color, color inflames emotion, and emotion restores water.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“It restores water? How? Is the goal to summon more water itself, or regenerate Mana?” asked Brin.

Lumina answered in Xeno’s place. “The latter, I’d imagine.”

“What’s the catch here? Because from what he’s describing, this sounds like an infinite Mana hack,” said Brin.

Lumina nodded. “We call it a Resonance Cycle. It’s an admirable achievement, but not an unexpected one. At least not in the higher levels.”

“There’s a reason you never hear [Archmages] talk about running out of Mana,” said Hogg.

“I suppose the goal of the Motley Shroud was to induce such a thing in low-level [Water Mages]. Such a system would allow them to overcome the limitations of small Mana pools and give them more opportunities to level faster,” said Lumina.

“It is as you describe,” said Xeno.

“Then what went wrong?” she asked.

Xeno stroked his goatee, but didn’t answer.

“The experiments necessary to develop this technique may have been intensive, but I fail to see what would make them dangerous. How did they all die? And why did Vitor survive?”

Again, Xeno failed to answer.

Lumina straightened her back and thumped her staff on the floor. “I know that the amount of resources Cobol lended to this effort increased exponentially when you began turning it towards developing a weapon against Arcaena. I know that’s when it all went wrong. A disaster. Or was it a breakthrough? What do you have to say about that?”

Still nothing.

“Too bad. Then by the authority delegated to me by the Master of this Tower, I place you under arrest,” said Lumina.

Xeno nodded. Still stroking his goatee, he refused to meet anyone’s eyes. Eventually, he stood and went to the door, and since Hogg and Lumina didn’t stop him, Brin didn’t either.

When Xeno was gone, Brin asked. “Did that go the way we wanted it to? I feel like you could’ve gotten something out of him if you’d pressed harder.”

“There was never a chance of that. It went how we expected it to,” answered Lumina.

Out of curiosity, Brin poked his head out of the office door. Xeno was already all the way down the hall, waiting at the elevator doors, which meant that he’d started running the second he’d left the room.

The elevator doors opened, revealing one of the prison’s Sentinels. The elevator car was barely large enough to fit the massive golem, and it was even more cramped when Xeno was added to it, going up.

“That was rather satisfying,” said Lumina.

“We should keep moving. I have eight more people I want you to arrest before they get wise and flee the Tower,” said Hogg.

Neither Hogg nor Lumina thought it was a good idea for Brin to tag along while they imprisoned all the people they didn’t like under a murky legal pretense, and that was the last time he saw them that day.

Time sped up after that. The news hit the city the next day with the morning papers, and then it was a flurry of activity. After months of waiting and wondering, suddenly everything was moving too fast. The [King] committed his personal order of knights to the effort: The Order of Steel. The Order of Nasciment, the rare martial order with female knights, volunteered to join as well. Two [Dukes] activated their own forces, and the [King] filled in the rest with mercenaries led by [General] Grimwalt.

On the magic side, the Tower was practically emptying itself of its top talent. All the most famous [Archmages] were going, like Gundavald, the [Archmage of Bursting Flame] and Tristan, the [Archmage of Stone]. Some very old [Archmages] he’d never met were joining, like the [Archmage of the Seven Winds], and the [Archmage of the Jagged Isles]. In addition to them, nearly every [Grand Magus] and equivalent would go as well. The deans and Circle Masters were cleared out. In fact, the only really important mage Brin knew was going to remain was Valentin, the Master of the Circle of Illusions. He was probably only staying because he could project his illusions across the country the way Hogg used to do.

The resulting army was only two thousand strong, and even though it was packed with elites, Brin still worried. Then finally, right at the last moment, the Master agreed to come along.

Chaos had been insistent the entire time that the army wasn’t needed because Cobol wasn’t in revolt, but eventually he conceded that it wouldn’t be a waste of time to drop by his friend’s duchy for a quick chat.

There was no amount of begging, threatening, compromise or bribery that could convince Lumina to let Brin come along. She was extremely pleased at the idea that Brin would actually stay out of things for once. She would be riding out to confront the danger and he’d stay back where it was safe; the way it was supposed to be.

She asked Hogg to stay behind as well, and he whined about it at least as much as Brin had. The reasons he couldn’t come were more practical. Lumina was carrying nearly her entire power base with her to Cobol. Someone needed to stay back and keep an eye on things.

She left on a clear and sunny morning that carried the first wind of autumn’s chill.

Time seemed to speed up again, though this time it really did speed up because Brin found himself using [Multithreading] at nearly every waking moment. There was just so much to do. How had he let himself get so lax?

He started putting real effort into his workouts again. Marksi joined him with impressive gusto, and some of Hogg’s workers who were willing to show up before their shifts.

Through training, you have increased the following attributes:

Strength +1

Will +1

At school, he started putting real effort into training his spells. Rather than casual curiosity and Mage Duels whose focus was on having fun, Brin’s every effort was on making his spells hit harder, particularly his Fire spells and molten glass. Ares was a bit confused by Brin’s sudden change in attitude, but he took it in stride and helped Brin refine his magic rather than making a big deal out of it, which he appreciated.

[Summon Flame through Glass] leveled up! 20 -> 22

[Shape Glass] leveled up! 55 -> 56

He also had a staff to finish. He wasn’t anywhere close to combining all the ingredients that Lumina and Hogg had purchased for him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make something usable. With just the Bog Standard shaft, the Fire Jelly power source, and the glass spearhead made of the best stuff he could create in his workshop, he had a pretty reasonable weapon. He kept the glass head as a ball, but he could shift it into a razor-sharp spearhead in a heartbeat when he needed to.

Then, rather than going all in on trying to give it permanent upgrades, he spent the next week calling in every favor he could to get other mages to inscribe it with one-off enchantments. It cost a lot less time and energy to inscribe a one-time use enchantment, and this would give him the chance to test out a lot of different things before he decided what he wanted on his permanent staff.

Lumina inscribed one Sanguine Fulmination for him before she left, just to humor him. The [Air Mage] he’d invited to Lumina’s lessons gave him three really strong shields of air. He got a few Fireballs from various sources, a few stone tossing spells, and a Water Jet spell from Sagramor, the one [Water Mage] who would work with him. When every inch of the staff was covered with inscriptions, he figured that was good enough.

He moved on to physical consumables after that, and Sion opened up a multitude of options on that front. The biggest win was a "Hardening Potion", and after the legal minimum required amount of off-color jokes, Sion explained that it would temporarily negate his Vitality problem by making his bones really hard to break. He found a [Laundress] who sold “Drying Powder”, a substance that could immediately repel water, best used on fabrics. Sion also sold him an even dozen exploding potions, a few Unbreathing potions, and more of the tablets that would eliminate his scent.

Then the day came. A week after Brin’s conversation with the [King] and the morning of the Tower Festival, Lumina arrived in sight of the duchy of Cobol. The army had moved far past Brin’s range, but Valentin had been kind enough to put it on a big screen for everyone down in the Circle of Illusion’s main gathering hall in the center of the labyrinth.

The mood was a tense sort of jovial as everyone tried not to show how worried they were about how it was going to turn out. He didn’t know the mood of the Tower when they’d been on the verge of a war with Arcaena, but if anything this was a bigger deal to them. Most of them had friends or family on both sides of this conflict, and the entire Tower was holding its breath.

Lumina approached the wall of mist that Cobol had summoned over his territory to deflect Invisible Eyes, growing ever closer, until finally a single figure emerged from the mist.

The army halted.

The figure approached from the mist until he was fully in view, and then Brin had a strange lost-limb feeling as he tried [Wyrdic Inspect] and the Skill failed. He’d forgotten you couldn’t use [Inspect] through someone else’s illusions.

Valentin was kind enough to move his Invisible Eye closer and give them a better view. Brin’s first instinct was that this man reminded him of Hogg. There was no family resemblance, and he had white hair while Hogg still maintained perfect black. The walk was the same, the purposeful stride and the utter confidence. The eyes were the same: serious, and missing nothing.

“That’s him. That’s Duke Xander of Cobol,” said Hogg, standing next to him. Brin had finally learned what disguise Hogg used in the Circle of Illusions. He was taller, and spoke with a different voice, and his code name was Sunshine, but it was Hogg.

Xander approached alone, and so Lumina walked alone away from her army to meet him. That was stupid. Wasn’t that a bad idea? But if she didn’t demonstrate irrational confidence in the face of her enemies, then she wouldn’t be Lumina.

They met each other in the middle, at speaking distance, though Brin didn’t know why they bothered. They certainly had [Illusionists] projecting the sound to the army, and probably half the world.

“I surrender,” said Duke Cobol. He fell to his knees.

The hall in the Circle of Illusions fell to a hush, and Brin sensed the same mood in the army behind Lumina. News this good at the start of a conflict could never be good news.

“I surrender. I surrender my title and name, and cede ownership of all my lands and properties to the crown,” said Cobol.

“I accept your surrender. In the name of [King] Lancarote, I place you under arrest,” said Lumina.

“As well you should. I have failed. I have failed my [King] and my house. I beg you to take possession of my lands, and to rescue what remains of my people,” said Cobol.

Lumina stepped past him, and Cobol remained on his knees. She cast a shield of air first, just on the chance that something would follow Cobol out of the mist. Then she raised her staff and began to chant the words of Language that she’d been working on for the last three months. “<The Light That Is An Enemy to Color. The Flame That Repels Water. Fireball!>”

A massive ball of molten earth covered with flame leapt from her staff and sailed through the air. As it went, it tore away the fog, first revealing the blue sky, and then eventually the land underneath.

The land was covered in a blanket of colors. Men and women in grotesque contortions, larger than life and monstrous, and more numerous than Lumina’s army by far. The Fireball slammed into the ground in the center of their force, and they took that as the opening shot.

The Motley Shroud attacked.